Islands

From the

Press

From an Editorial in The Samoa Times, Apia, commenting on the new controversy surrounding the old

writings of anthropologist Margaret Mead

The current debate involving Dr Derek Freeman and his critique of Margaret Mead’s, until recently, masterpiece “Coming of Age in Samoa”, highlights once again the need for more Western Samoans to be trained in the social sciences such as anthropology, psychology and sociology ... Dr Freeman has made an exhaustive study of Samoan culture and we should be grateful to him for bringing many aspects of our true culture to the world, especially for correcting many of the false assumptions that Margaret Mead has made about our culture in her famous, or infamous, book “Coming of Age in Samoa”.

While Dr Freeman is not the first to hit at Mead’s ridiculous claims, at the same time he has made what has amounted to a complete refutation of Mead’s romantic and idealised notions about Samoa.

From The Times of Papua New Guinea The “Queen Elizabeth 2” was Queen of Port Moresby for a day when she paid a rare, stately visit on Monday. Her 1,700 guests became the guests of Papua New Guinea, travelling to the cool Sogeri plateau and seeing other sights of the national capital.

About 50 VIPs from Papua New Guinea were invited on board.

All, it is understood, later returned reluctantly ashore. ... and from an article in the Cook Islands News, Rarotonga, on the visit there of the Queen Elizabeth II There are two sets of cabins on board, costing $270,000 for the cruise which lasts 90 days. There are many cabins costing $lOO,OOO, and for poor people there are cabins that cost only $20,000.

From a letter in Voice of Vanuatu headed Lost Bins I wanted to take this privilege to thank the municipality workers especially those working on the garbage truck for their great help in taking out the rubbish (household wastes). I also would like to put out some comments on their work. I think their boss or whoever is in charge of their work didn’t really do his work well in explaining whether they should throw out the dust bins as well. I put it this way, because their work is only to throw out the rubbish rather than the rubbish bins, but to my surprise at the area in which I lived women are seriously complaining about their rubbish bins being thrown into the garbage truck as well. I think, their boss or whatever they call him, should look into this matter because the municipality didn’t help to pay for our dust bins.

From Voice of Vanuatu Port-Vila Beaujolais Nouveau parties rage in France at this time. And a Beaujolais Nouveau party was given in the capital on Monday by the restaurant, Sur le Toit. Members of the diplomatic corps and invited guests tasted the first wine of the new year. Three casks boarded a ship bound for Port Vila when the wine was just six weeks old. It fermented in the wood for the four weeks of its journey. It was still fermenting while it was being drunk, restaurateur Karl-Heinz Okon said.

From “The Times Opinion” on “Keep military out of Remembrance Day”, in The Times of Papua New Guinea . . . Who knew, really, who or what they were fighting for?

How many Papua New Guineans were personally concerned whether it was the Japanese or the Americans and Australians who won? There must be no focus on the “winning” of the war. Papua New Guinea was in the hands of foreigners before, during and after the war, fought on its soil without its permission for the sole benefit of foreigners. We suggest the focus of future Remembrance Days must be on the ending of wars, on sorrow and repentance for the wars and violence with which we have been or are associated. How can we glory in “triumphant dead”?

From an interview with Cook Islands singer Apiti Nicholas on her visit to Tahiti, as reported in the Cook Islands News “The Tahitians think they are better than us at singing, but there are many top singers in Rarotonga. Compared with the Tahitians, we’re all the same,” said Apiti.

From a letter by Jerry Akove, “Embarrassed Melanesian”, in the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier Our ladies are becoming extraordinarily westernised with gold and silver painted toes, fingernails, red lips and painted eyelids.

Please my counterpart madame, did your grandmother or your motherlive that way? I just feel like swearing at PNG women whose hips go up and down, like a New Guinea cassowary, when she walks in her high-heeled shoes. I want to see a prompt stop to this collapse of Melanesian identify held by women.

From Letters to the Editor in the Samoa Times, Apia, from a Melbourne correspondent Last year you inserted a call for penfriends column. I did receive some answers, but unfortunately they did not seem interested in friendly correspondence as it turned out. One lady wanted me to send her money, as she said she was poor, and the other two wanted me to sponsor them to Australia.

From a letter by S. Ranck (University of Papua New Guinea) in The Times of Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby Your banner headline. “Our sick economy is going to get worse” reflects the exceedingly one-eyed view of a particular special interest group. In fact, the Papua New Guinea economy is not sick. A small part of it, the so-called modem sector, is indeed suffering because it depends on a workd economy engulfed in depression and eroded by inflation. The majority of Papua New Guineans share but marginally in that sector. They are still able to feed and house themselves in a self-reliant fashion and they all have some claims to property. It is precisely as a result of their healthy economy that they are not suffering the starvation, degradation and slave wages so common in the Third World and an integral part of poverty in the developed world.

From the Cook Islands News, Rarotonga, reporting on comments on Samoans by Titikaveka College students after visiting Samoa Most of the students found the Samoan way of life of “Fa’a Samoa” very different from that of the Cook Islands. “Boys do the cooking” commented student Piritau Nge. Another added that they never saw a lawn-mower in Samoa and they cut their grass with a big knife. One girl commented “They don’t tie their pigs up . . .” When asked about the people all agreed “They’re very friendly, kind or very generous.”

From a USP Information Bulletin article on David Fanshawe who is recording and researching traditional music in the Pacific Islands On Rapa Mr Fanshawe recorded some of the most interesting examples of music of his travels. They were religious hymns which were performed to sound like a tape recorder with flat batteries, out of tune by Western standards. He said this unique music thoroughly justified the journey. The only music he had ever heard which sounded anything like it were the hippo hunting songs of the El Molo tribe of Lake Rudolph, North Kenya.